


22 kisses with the bull's chargers

by greymahariel (acceptnosubstitutes)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Fluff, Interracial Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Multi, Surprise Pairing, Surprises, Underwater Kiss, hydrophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 17:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3177867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acceptnosubstitutes/pseuds/greymahariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So...wait,” Varric says, “you kissed them all?”</p><p>Lavellan flushes, burying his face into his arms with a groan. “More than once,” comes his muffled voice.</p><p>"Well, you know what they say, right?" Lavellan can just <i>hear</i> the smirk in Varric's voice. "Once is coincidence, multiple times...you got a pattern going, little elf."</p><p>“I hate you.”</p><p>(Basically, everyone gets a little elven love. That's it. That's the fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chest kiss - krem

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr "kissing" writing prompts + the chargers + random number generator = ?????
> 
> There are 22 kisses, by the way.
> 
> Tags updated as needed. As are warnings.

Krem picked himself up off the ground, facing Lavellan. Tricky elf, that one. Lavellan, crouched low to the ground, half bounces back and forth on his heels. Waiting.

“You okay over there, old man?” Lavellan calls out. “Need some help?”

Krem shakes his head. Sighs, but comes a little closer.

“Who put you in charge again?”

Lavellan snorts.

“Technically, _you_ did. And a bunch of other people. I don’t want to say I told you so but...”

“Don’t even.”

This morning, the small and mostly dirt covered area behind the tavern called out to them like a war horn. For once, the field lay barren of the soldiers who usually occupied it. 

Krem didn’t know the reason. Didn’t care. Neither had Lavellan, who was the one who suggested they play this “game” in the first place.

It’s a different feeling from the times he’s shared the space with Bull. Muscle memory keeps trying to adjust for a full suit of armor and the significant weight of Krem’s shield that just aren’t there. Still, he’s light on his feet. Wouldn’t beat Lavellan in laps, having already experienced that painful, very bad idea first hand, thanks. But he does sprints better. 

“What’s taking so long, Krem?” So far Lavellan hasn’t made a move, preferring to insult Krem’s country of origin, punned his last name, and did some elven thing Krem’s pretty sure is obscene.

Have to ask Dalish about it, later.

“Come on! Remember, next fall wi -aaaaah!”

Krem waited for his opening, when Lavellan took his eyes off him for a split second. But it was enough for Krem to shorten the distance between them, go low, and tackle Lavellan to the ground at the waist.

“Good one,” Lavellan wheezes, winded, “Also, ow.”

Krem chuckles, planting his hands on either side of Lavellan’s head; clearly the elf thought he’d move to get up, but surprises are fun too.

And there’s just that matter of his victory. 

Lavellan grins his infamous shit eating grin, the one the soldiers have been trained to run from, as if their thoughts parallel each other.

“So, what does the winner, heh, win?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Krem says, “how about...the loser?”

Lavellan adopts a thinking pose, scratching his chin and humming as though he was considering Krem’s proposal with the utmost solemnity. 

So of course Krem pushes his arms to his sides and leans down, licking a long line up Lavellan’s chest. He kisses him shy of his collarbone, before doing the same in reverse, tongue dragging down in response to his squirming.

“You ever get told you talk and think too much?”

Krem quirks a smile.

“And, of course, you lost your shirt already. What is it, fifth time this week?”

“Oh, almost every day, and third, you ass,” Lavellan says, then groans. “Oh, do that again.”

Krem lowers himself until their noses almost bump against each other. This close, chest to chest and other interested parties in close contact, Lavellan exudes warmth. A tiny little forge.

Krem dips his head.

“Bull’s not the only one who likes to _play_ ,” he murmurs against Lavellan’s mouth.

Lavellan’s eyebrows arch high, yellow eyes dancing. 

But he opens his mouth willingly, digs blunt nails in. Slips under the human's shirt and rakes one hand down Krem’s back.

Just the way he likes it.


	2. eyelid kiss - rocky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't even aware it's apparently a thing, to kiss someone's eyelid ???? Idk, sounds weird to me.

Lavellan trudges into the tavern, not even greeting the bartender or the waiters like he usually does. His boots squelch against the wooden floor. 

He picks a table seemingly at random and sits down, heavily, tipping his head back. Sees the people at the adjacent table cringe away from him. Doesn’t blame them. Creators knows what he smells like at this point.

Lavellan is pretty sure, however, he’s lost his sense of smell for the next few hours. Maybe days. And good riddance.

Death clings to his gear like a lingering shadow. It’s not a tangible thing, but Lavellan still shivers even now, in a tavern that must be at least seventy degrees.

Lavellan pulls at his collar, unbuttoning the first few buttons of his jacket. He only just looks up when one of the braver waiters approaches him.

Shakes his head, and the room spins. Shit. Probably a bad thing.

He’ll go see a healer, he tells himself, even as his head slumps forward against his chest. But after. Just, five minutes.

Five minutes.

A few minutes even pass in relative peace.

But all of a sudden, something is touching him? Feels like hands. Hard grip. Is whatever it is climbing into his lap? 

Now close. Very close. Gives off the whiff of something that Lavellan likens to explosives. Kinda earthy, but not like the Dalish. More attuned to the ground, what lies underneath. 

His visitor smells distinctly masculine.

And is now cupping his face in rough, calloused hands and...kisses his eyelid?

Lavellan’s eyes snap open. Faintly registers there’s a dwarf in his lap, grinning at him, looks familiar but he goes for for his knife almost automatically. Hand grasps at air. Wrong side, brilliance.

Lavellan leans back from the dwarf, unaware exactly how close to the edge of the chair he is. He yelps, but can’t stop sliding sideways to the floor, with the dwarf. Gets an elbow in the face. Anything his fingers scramble at for purchase seems to slither out of his grasp at the last moment.

They hit the ground with a distinct thud, Lavellan’s legs tangled in the bottom of the chair’s wooden supports and horizontal beams.

“Get off,” Lavellan says, shoving at the dwarf who still hasn’t let go of him.

“Aww, come on,” and that’s Rocky, that’s definitely Rocky, “that was one spectacular fall, you gotta admit.”

Lavellan lifts his head to glare at him, but realizes how close that brings their mouths together. Backpedals a little too fast, slamming his head off the floor.

“Ouch.”

“Piss off.”

But Rocky just sits up on his chest, meeting the gazes of anyone brave enough to look at them.

“What,” he demands, “ain’t ever seen an elf and a dwarf…?”

Purposely trails off, lets them finish that sentence for themselves. Surely some of them have...quite interesting choices, too. Some of the women blush, a couple turns away with a disgusted noise, and one human male seems oddly, particularly intrigued.

Rocky shrugs, turning back to Lavellan.

“Hey, boss,” he says, grinning again, “close your eyes.”

Lavellan eyes him warily, but the floor is, strangely, far more comfortable than the chair. If it extends the time he doesn’t have to get up and eventually meet Cullen’s bewildered stare or Josephine’s subtly prodding questions? All the better.

He huffs, suspicious, but closes his eyes.

The butterfly light kiss to his other eyelid sparks something in him, bubbling up to the surface, uncontainable.

He breaks into laughter. Laughs all the harder when Rocky joins in, and there are tears streaming from the elf’s eyes because the bartender looks like he’s considering shouting for a healer.

“Creators, Rocky,” Lavellan manages, between gasps for air, “you can’t - what, ehehe, what even?”

A giant shadow looms over them. Lavellan’s fairly sure he opened his mouth to greet Bull, maybe answer that question in his raised eyebrow, but laughter escapes him first. He’s into another fit of uncontrollable laughter before he knows it, seeming to stretch eons before, blessedly, finally it ends.

He groans, chest heaving, lungs on fire. Exhausted. 

“Okay,” Bull says, looking at them like they’ve both lost it, “not sure I even want to know?"

Rocky gives his other boss a friendly punch in the leg.

“Just cheering up the big boss. Boss.”


	3. gentle peck kiss - stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol I tried to follow info on how to handle real life possible concussions, and estimated the approximate medical knowledge/tech that might be had in a sort of feudal, fantasy world but hell. Probably not as accurate as it could be.

He wakes with the most awful throbbing located somewhere in the vicinity of his head. Or, maybe that’s radiating down his arms? Across his shoulders? All of the above?

What happened?

Sounds come to him like Bull, or maybe Blackwall, is blowing one of those damned war horns in the Exalted Plains, right in his ear. 

Lavellan whimpers and attempts to curl into a ball, small as he can manage, but gentle hands make him lie still. He opens his eyes, slowly, blinking away at the blurriness until the dark, fuzzy haze in front of him materializes into something resembling a person.

“Lie still,” a quiet voice instructs.

Sounds like Stitches. The blob person leans over him, fingers shifting through his hair in search of something. Lavellan has no idea.

About a lot of things.

He clears his throat, wincing at the noise of it and even his own voice.

“What happened?”

Stitches settles back on his heels. 

“I’m not sure,” the healer admits, “I didn’t see it happen. Only came upon you, sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. You hit your head awfully hard, I’m afraid.”

Stitches shifts, seems to be rummaging through the bag he always carries with him. It’s a battered, old leather thing. Smells of elfroot and other medicinal herbs. He seems to keep a medical laboratory in there, or at least that’s what it seems whenever one of the Chargers gets hurt and he emerges from rummaging with gauze, pins, and healing poultices besides the numerous other items depending on the level of emergency.

And always a gentle, serene little smile. Like he has now.

Skyhold’s medics could learn a bit about bedside manner from Stitches, oh, they could. But they’re also in charge of sewing Lavellan’s guts back inside his body should they decide to relocate outside, and that is a consideration too.

“I think you cut yourself,” Stitches says, his hands back in Lavellan’s hair, “but it’s hard to tell with the color of your hair.”

Lavellan laughs, but groans shortly thereafter. His head sees fit to punish him with an off-key representation of Sera’s many attempts at annoying Dorian and Solas whenever she visits the library. Has been banned, in fact, but has that ever stopped a rogue?

“Don’t make me laugh,” he pleads. “That why Bull likes redheads so much?”

Stitches’ soft laugh carries down to Lavellan, blessedly quiet, though the elf can’t actually see his face. His fingers finally stop their pursuit through Lavellan’s hair, instead slipping under his head.

“This will be unpleasant, but I need you to lift your head a moment.”

That sounds like a horrible idea. Horrible. Still, it’s Stitches. He wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.

Lavellan grumbles, but consents to lift his head half of the way, and Stitches the other.

Mmm, bad idea doesn’t even begin to cover it. Blobs of hazy color once finally sharpening into some focus swim in front of his eyes, rising an onset of vague nausea.

But it doesn’t take Stitches long to do whatever it is he needed to do, and Lavellan’s gently lowered to the ground again within a few moments.

He squeezes his eyes shut tightly.

“There,” comes Stitches’ voice, “all done.”

Lavellan blinks up at him, the healer’s deft hands working at his side to secure a swath of thin gauze around his head. At least it doesn’t seem to be a serious injury, or Stitches would be using a lot more of the itchy cloth.

“I know you won’t like it,” and Stitches chuckles at Lavellan’s preemptive groaning, “but I must request you be observed for at least the next few hours, possibly more. You could have a concussion.”

“I hate the med tent.”

Which is a widely recognized, often ignored, truth of the Inquisition. 

Lavellan grimaces, finally focusing on Stitches again enough to make out his face.

“Don’t make me,” he pleads, going for that kicked puppy look, “not there.”

Stitches sighs, but his face looks indulgent.

“I don’t believe it matters where you are observed, after all. Though I would rather move you as little as possible, if you agree to remain in bed until I am satisfied, I can arrange to have you carried to your quarters, if you prefer?”

“I’d prefer to walk.”

A soft snort meets that statement.

“No,” Stitches says, “you wouldn’t.”

He’s probably got a point, what with the sudden heaviness of Lavellan’s eyes, but damned if the elf is going to admit it.

However, he does manage, quite reluctantly but only with minor grumbling and much sighing, to allow Stitches to commandeer a makeshift stretcher from the med tent and a few nearby soldiers at the time to help carry it into the fortress.

Lavellan braces for the cacophony of sound undoubtedly about to erupt, seeing their Herald laid out like that, but meets only quiet murmurs of concern instead. Or, at least he assumes they’re quiet. The volume level still sort of hurts.

Stitches’ doing, most likely. Always thoughtful.

They make it to Lavellan’s bed without much fuss, though leveraging him off the stretcher and into its soft confines does summon a brief desire to throw up on the floor.

Once the loud tap, tapping sound of leather boots on stone fades behind the near silent closing of his door, Lavellan relaxes enough to feel fairly comfortable.

“Oh, no you don’t.”

A sharp pinch to his side snaps his eyes open, and the rest of him nearly follows upright, but for the hand against his chest holding him down.

The healer tsks, going to work. In a few short minutes he manages to arrange enough pillows on the bed to act as an elevated angle to keep Lavellan from sleeping. He could never fall asleep, like that, and that means Bull probably told the healer.

Stupid mother hen qunari.

“You can’t sleep, Lavellan. Not until we’re sure you didn’t do more than just hit your head.”

Still, Stitches draws up the blankets around Lavellan, tucking them in at his side. Then he takes a seat in a nearby chair, withdrawing a thick book from his bag.

Has a raised eyebrow for Lavellan’s frown.

“If you’re going to disobey general prescribed medical instruction,” Stitches says, knowing he hates it when he gets all jargony, “I’m not about to let just anyone watch over you. Bull would kill me.”

Or, in other words: the Chargers’ way of saying “I care, and I’m worried, now shut up and deal.”

“So I’m supposed to, what, lie here? And stare at the wall?”

Stitches crosses his legs, and chuckles.

“No. I thought I might read aloud, a bit? If that’s all right with Ser Grumpy?”

“That’s Varric’s nickname for Mahariel,” Lavellan snickers, though he tries to keep a serious expression.

It’s just. The famed, untouchable Hero of Ferelden is built up like this god, and being elven, an exotic god. When in reality, anyone who saw him trading sniping quips with a dwarf who keeps affectionately referring to him as “grumpy,” just to watch him twitch, would be taken aback.

Stitches opens his book, smoothing a thumb over the first page.

“I believe he has since, hmm, adjusted that name. Though I must admit being puzzled at the phrase, sunny side up?”

Lavellan cackles more, not even noticing it hardly causes him pain anymore.

“You mean to tell me you’ve never had eggs? It’d be better for Solas.”

Stitches doesn’t question him. He simply nods, and bends his head toward his book.

An account of the Fifth Blight, but to Lavellan’s ears, something seems a bit off. It’s possible, quite possible actually, Stitches actually has Varric’s copy of the book.

The one the dwarf enjoyed sharing with Mahariel and noted down every single, ahem, corrective comment he made.

Varric always did know how to put people at ease. Well. Except for Cassandra.

Lavellan leans back against the pillows, answering Stitches’ occasional pause for a question or two - Lavellan is better acquainted with Mahariel, short as it was, than he - or deliberately worded observations intended to catch Lavellan’s attention.

It doesn’t pass Lavellan’s notice, but seems a harmless way to ease the healer’s concern.

Somewhere between a ridiculous section about werewolves, forest spirits, and King Alistair finding each and every trap in the area - by way of stumbling into them unawares - Lavellan must start dropping off.

In his comfortably drowsy state, the room is warm. Quiet. Stitches’ voice soothes the pain to a dull throb, nearly unnoticeable.

At some point, Stitches goes quiet, and then there’s a brief pressure over the bandage crossing Lavellan’s forehead. Like a kiss.

Perhaps to wake him up gently, but the Iron Bull does the exact same thing, sometimes, when Lavellan is half asleep and curled up at his side, comfortably warm. When he’s least likely to protest.

“Do you know how long it’s been?”

Lavellan blinks his eyes open, frowning at the candle burning on the windowpane nearest his view, brightening the gaping void outside.

Only felt like an hour, at most.

“I’d say it’s well into the morning hours at this point,” Stitches says, gently extracting and smoothing back odd strands of red caught in the bandages, “and as far as I can tell, you can breathe a sigh of relief. I’m fairly sure you simply tripped and fell down the stairs. Badly.”

Probably, but how mortifying. Herald of Andraste and he can’t even get his own feet to obey him.

But with a smile, Stitches extinguishes the candle flame and slips out the door, only pausing a moment to look back.

“I won’t tell.”


	4. underwater kiss - dalish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for backstory? Well, not the content, but the concept!

Lavellan eyes Dalish with a frown.

“I don’t think this is a great idea.”

The other elf splashes her hands in the water, sighing as he flinches. Again.

“Come on boss,” she says, “it won’t bite.”

Lavellan edges a little closer, stopping at the edge of the dock. He watches the lake lap at the sides of the wooden structure and sighs, sitting down nearby to tug his boots off.

“Sure it will,” he says, scowling at her laugh. “Why did I agree to do this again?”

“You’re Dalish aren’t you? How did you survive this long without knowing how to swim?”

While Lavellan struggles with the laces, somehow hopelessly tangled now, Dalish kicks up onto her back and glides over nearby. She makes it look easy. But he knows better. Oh, yes. Water is evil.

“I didn’t make a habit of falling into rivers.”

Boots and socks deposited on the dock, Lavellan shifts and sits on the edge of the dock, lightly kicking his feet in the water.

Dalish smiles. “Take your time.”

Probably why the others pushed her at him, not Skinner, and told them to have fun. There’s something innocent about Dalish, not childish as some would claim, but just a...a goodness, Lavellan doesn’t know, okay, only that it’s really hard to deny her anything she wants.

Even if she wants him to. Swim.

Lavellan sighs, stripping off his shirt and dropping it behind his back. He eases off the dock, slipping into water that hits about chest level. Can still stand, feel the bottom, dirt giving way as his toes curl into it.

“See,” Dalish says, “you’re not even sinking!”

She comes nearby, always careful to approach him from the front and not behind.

“I know how to float, Dalish.”

“Well,” the other elf grins, adopting his stance, “that’s half the battle.”

A snort tells her exactly what Lavellan thinks of that, but he lets her take his hands and pull him forward. The two drift further out, away from the dock, pausing when water starts lapping at their shoulders and the ground dips away.

Dalish chuckles.

“Boss, you said you couldn’t swim? You’re doing fine.”

Truthfully, he is. He’s treading water fine, letting it keep him afloat with only minimal effort. That’s really not the problem.

“I didn’t say that,” Lavellan reminds her, “Bull said that. Refused any correction, because, and I quote ‘I force everyone to circumvent any bodies of water larger than a river, rather than wade through them’. Do you know what it’s like swimming with fifty pounds of equipment? Sometimes I wonder you guys let him lead you all.”

Dalish leans close, as if whatever she wants to tell him is a sworn secret, and uttering it means death if certain people overhear.

“Don’t tell anyone, but it’s mostly Krem who leads. In practice, anyway. Bull just likes hitting things, not paperwork.”

Lavellan shares her conspiratorial grin, shaking his head. But doesn’t doubt her. Any and all reports the Inquisition receives from the Chargers’ various activities are all penned in Krem’s neat handwriting, always signed with his full name. 

He really wonders if Bull’s patience would outlast actually sitting down and writing a report, half sure it wouldn’t.

“So,” Dalish says, “you want to tell me what the real problem is?”

Lavellan hesitates, so she interlaces their hands and squeezes gently. It’s Dalish, he reasons. She won’t laugh at him. They've even been out here for about an hour now and she patiently waited out any and every reason he could give her why Elijah Lavellan and water put together is a bad idea.

“It’s, it’s ridiculous. I know I’m not going to…” he trails off, growling in frustration, “I can swim, okay? I know how. I’m a strong swimmer, even, when I have to be. I know I won’t drown just because the water’s over my head but.”

Dalish pulls him a little further along as she listens. Small steps. Enough he doesn’t really notice.

“You’re afraid of drowning?”

He shrugs, but then shakes his head.

“When I was young,” he says, face twisting like it isn’t easy talking about this, whatever it is, “I am Dalish, all right? A Lavellan. Not that everyone would agree.”

Dalish has no idea what this has to do with Lavellan’s maybe-maybe-not issue with drowning, but she nods when he trails off again.

“I grew up in an alienage, until I was, damn, don’t even remember. Maybe ten? And after, well, I left that life behind at ten, I guess. Wasn’t good enough for some of them, in the clan. The kids I mean. Though the adults weren’t always inviting either.”

The more he goes on the more distant the look in his eyes becomes, almost like he’s not even looking at Dalish. Like he’s not even there. So she uses their connected hands to splash through the water, wetting the both of them and smiling at his cross expression.

“Very funny,” he says, shaking his head like a dog, much to her delighted squealing. “But, look. I don’t have to tell you Dalish and city elves don’t get along very well, for the most part. Half-breeds fare less with both.”

She frowns. “Half?”

Now Lavellan is definitely not looking at her, but on purpose.

“My mom was of clan Lavellan,” he clarifies, “but my father…”

“City elf?”

Lavellan shrugs. “I guess. Didn’t know him - died before, well, before I knew how to walk, probably.”

Oh. But Lavellan sees the look on Dalish’s face and his own softens.

“I can’t miss what I never knew, right? Well, so I lived with clan Lavellan and was a mix. Sometimes that’s what I got called. The politest term, anyway. They...there was this group of kids, weren’t very friendly with anyone, as I remember it. Troublemakers. That lot. But took especial interest in me.”

Lavellan tugs free of her hands and she lets him go, guessing it’s easier to say this if he doesn’t have to look her in the eyes and that’s okay. It’s not her. Lavellan doesn’t really like talking about himself, in general, and anything she or the other Chargers know about him are things they learn by observation. Usually by his side, in the chaotic mess of battle.

She goes back to floating on her back and he copies her. Doesn’t protest when her fingers seek out his in the water again.

“It’s not like clan Lavellan hates others not like them,” he says, “they’re...I gather they’re different than most Dalish clans towards humans and other non-Dalish elves. But it was hard won getting there, and that’s the story only clan members know.”

“So, those kids? They had this, I don’t know, opinion maybe. Let’s call it that. That city elves were dirt, and if you weren’t even a full member of either group, but both? Less than that. So I was...dirty, I guess. Whatever. Unclean.”

Dalish frowns, chewing at her bottom lip. Unclean. Water. It didn’t take a genius to put the two together. But Lavellan seems to need to get this out, so she stays silent.

“It was a game,” he says, followed by a harsh laugh, “I guess, because it was in shallow water? So if I’d had the strength, I could’ve -”

He stops, quiet for a long while. Then exhales a low, somewhat uneven breath. Unexpectedly, chuckles a little.

“Well, Tam had it. Tamisriel. A, friend. I don’t know exactly what he did, because I think I blacked out a little, or something. But there was blood. And then he taught me archery, the other tricks of the trade of being a rogue. So the next time, because there’s always next times, I wouldn’t need him.”

Lavellan righted himself in the water, rubbing at the back of his neck when Dalish popped up the same.

“Well,” he says, “that was embarrassing. But yeah, I don’t like water. Still. But not because I don’t know how to swim.”

Dalish nods, coming closer once more and picks up his hands again.

“Thank you, for trusting me with that.”

He tilts his head at her.

“It’s not you I didn’t trust,” he says, “it was the -”

She cuts him off, ignores the yelp he makes when she yanks him forward and then down. Down underneath the water. Steps into his body and feels his struggles slowly cease.

Would laugh, if she could, but instead curves her hands along his jaw and pulls his head toward her, fitting their mouths together.

Breathing for them both - just for a few seconds.

They bob up to the surface and there she does laugh at the sour glare he sends her way. Lavellan doesn’t stop her from pushing her fingers through his wet hair, however, twisting red around her fingertips and pushing it this way and that to make a mess.

And later, when they dry off and leave the lake for Skyhold, Dalish makes sure she finds Bull alone. She tilts her head to the side.

They walk the ramparts of the fortress for a while in silence, stopping to gaze over the sounds of training and other goings on below.

“Don’t you think,” she says, after a while, “he should’ve told _you_ that?”

He doesn’t ask what she means. She doesn’t elaborate.

“Nah.”

The elf looks up at him, eyebrow raised, huffing when a large hand simply comes down to muss her hair up.

“You’re the boss, boss.”

She still thinks it would’ve been better.


	5. forceful kiss - grim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I did enjoy this one. _Much_. Dorian, on the other hand. Not so much.

It is an incredibly bad day to be the Herald of Andraste. Or, well, Lavellan, but repeated rejections of said title haven’t resulted in anything other than Inquisitor Lavellan giving up and letting the people call him what they will.

It’s better than “elf” or “knife-ear” after all.

But yes, a horrible, incredibly unlucky, no good day to be the Herald.

Why? It’s Grim.

The situation _is_ grim, but also _because of_ Grim.

Hmm, made more sense in his head. Whatever. 

Grim keeps staring at him. Everywhere Lavellan goes, and does that mean Bull has one of the Chargers follow him all day? Every day? Hmm. Something they’re going to have to talk about, apparently.

If Lavellan survives the day, that is. And he has serious concerns. It’s, well, Grim. Doesn’t talk much, but doesn’t need to, to crack your head open like a potato.

They’ve fought together, and admittedly Lavellan paid more attention to his enemies than those he fought beside, but he knows enough about how Grim fights to be driving himself paranoid with visions of cracked bones and blood. Lots of blood.

Skinner might also slice him up, if he pisses her off enough, but at least he’d see her coming. Have an idea what she’s thinking, even if it honestly frightens him.

Grim…

Lavellan notices it first in Skyhold’s main hall after he leaves his quarters to face whatever his advisors see fit to throw at him that day. One has to be prepared for anything, because Josie, Leliana, and Cullen have proven to be resourceful.

He still firmly believes the farmer who marched rows of two dozen chickens to stand in front of the throne like tiny bodyguards and forced him to listen to everything about chickens primer 101 (the guy knew a frightening amount of information, truly) was Cullen’s revenge for the whole Duchess Florianne and head on a pike thing.

Still hilarious. And taught Celine, Gaspard, and Briala a little something about how their relationship with the Inquisition would progress. With little bloodshed even! At the moment.

Anyway, he’d stepped out into the hall and accepted a report from a nearby runner about...something, when he felt eyes on the back of his head.

Turned and blinked, because the Chargers rarely venture from the tavern unless for business, and Grim never. But Lavellan waved, Grim nodded, and they both went about their days.

Or so Lavellan thought.

The second time wasn’t anywhere of note in particular. Lavellan had been minding his own business, taking a moment to catch his breath, take a break from running around all the time.

And then someone slapped his ass.

No, not Grim, actually. The Iron Bull.

Right out in the open. Cheeky bastard. So, of course Lavellan had to one up him. Of course. He pressed up and into him for a kiss.

Then he, discreetly he might add, rubbed his ass because _damn_. That hurt. He’d be feeling it all day. Probably intended.

And, naturally, he finally remembered Cassandra, whacking away at a test dummy not even twenty or so feet away. Her back was turned to him but shoulders drawn in, and she seemed to hold a personal grudge against the second dummy to the left.

Whoops.

Of course, looking that way made his eyes easily pad left and at the requisitions building. And to Grim, leaning against it with an apple in one hand. Seemingly not noticing him either, until hazel flicked up and held.

The hairs on the back of Lavellan’s neck twitched, but he discarded it as nothing. 

Coincidence.

Until the next day, and it happens again. When it becomes a _thing_.

A thing that makes Lavellan jump at every sound and look around every corner as if the Maker damned Venatori posse is lying in wait to jump him.

Fuck coincidence. Inquisitor Lavellan is in full paranoia mode now, thank you.

It sounds like he’s making a big deal out of nothing. Perhaps Grim’s just shy. But said skeptics do not know Grim as well as he does.

Grim staring means Grim is about to inflict _violent things_ upon object of said, admittedly, kind of stalkerish observation. 

He’s a hunter, that one, Lavellan knows. Knows like the back of his hand because that’s the sort of look you start to get when you’ve gone without meat for days and there’s a whole host of people - kids - back home relying on you.

Elfroot is not, coincidentally, the most tasty meal ever. Or something a person can subsist on for long.

So. Grim is going to kill him. Probably painfully. Definitely violently. Method of death is up in the air. Blade or hand-to-hand are the most obvious, but the Chargers are flexible when they need to be.

Once he saw Krem break a chair over some drunk’s head because the man made untoward, and unwanted, advances toward Dalish and Skinner.

He'd refused to stop when asked politely. And trusting Skinner to deal with anything usually ended in blood and tears.

Lavellan wracks his brain for anything he did that could’ve offended the other man, but comes up with nothing. Grim never talks! What even!

One would think the fact that Lavellan, _the_ boss, so actually his _overall_ boss, is in a relationship with the giant, overprotective, and possessive horned giant a.k.a. his _other_ boss, might give Grim pause. 

But who really knows Grim?

The son of a minor noble, his ass. For all Lavellan knows, perhaps he’s a serial killer in the making. Creators knows he never expected Blackwall to have turned out to have killed an entire family for gold, for the love of...

“Inquisitor?”

Lavellan screams. He’s perfectly okay with admitting it, because the situation is desperate and hey, he’ll probably be dead long before Dorian has the opportunity to rub it in his face.

The mage looks at him with worried eyes and a frown when Lavellan wheels around, hand over his heart.

“Dorian,” he says, way too cheerfully to be real, “you! Friend!”

Now Dorian looks like he’s downright concerned for Lavellan’s continued sanity. He crosses his arms and eases toward Lavellan like one might an injured animal.

“Yes,” says Dorian, eyeing him. “Me. Friend. Are we going to be responding in monosyllables for the rest of this conversation? Perhaps I should get Blackwall. You two can brood together over...whatever one broods over, I suppose. I wouldn’t know.”

Lavellan takes three quick strides toward him, grabbing him by the shoulders and ignoring his wide eyes in favor of looking over his shoulders, moving Dorian side to side as he wills.

“Phew. Safe. For now.”

“Safe? Are you worried about something?”

Lavellan finally seems to fully, actually recognize Dorian. He puts a little space between them, rubbing the back of his neck and laughing nervously.

Still nothing to put Dorian’s mind at ease.

“Sorry,” he says, “you just. You caught me at a bad time, let’s say.”

A bad time.

Dorian raises an eyebrow, as if to say “my father showing up in _Ferelden_ out of _nowhere_ , that was a bad time; is your bad time as bad or should I prepare for the end of the world...again?” 

Yes, all that, one eyebrow raise. Dorian has a gift.

“I think Grim wants to kill me.”

Lavellan says it matter-of-fact, either ignoring or completely not noticing how Dorian goes from “this is a problem” to “this is a _problem_ ” in record time.

“Grim,” Dorian says, frowning, “one of Bull’s group, yes? I forget which, there are like seven of them.”

“The quiet one,” Lavellan supplies.

“Ah. And he wants to kill you. You’re sure?”

Lavellan nods rapidly, twitching as some soldiers pass by in the distance, laughing amongst themselves.

Dorian shakes his head, sighing.

“On the basis of what, my dear Inquisitor? I can’t set a man aflame without knowing the reason for which such action is needed. Plus, it’s Bull. I better have a pretty damn good reason. And even then...if I had a head start, say a few hours or so, how long do you think it’d take Bull to catch up to me?”

“He keeps _staring_ at me.”

Dorian looks at him, uncertain if he’s going to continue or not. Surely that can’t be the entire body of evidence for Inquisitor Lavellan’s belief this Grim wants to kill him?

“Yes,” Lavellan says, throwing his arms up at Dorian, “and it’s enough! You don’t even know him, Dorian. Staring is bad. Very bad. Violently bad. Very bad. I said that already, didn’t I?”

Dorian pulls his arms to his side, holding him in place. Or tries to, because Lavellan’s breathing hard and downright bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet despite his efforts.

“Yes, dear. However, I am not convinced your impromptu panic attack won’t do the job nicely enough, in the meantime. Please calm down and I’m sure we can -”

Instead of calming down, Lavellan screams. Again. Dorian winces. Close enough practically in his ear.

Dorian doesn’t recognize the blond almost stalking towards them, but Lavellan can’t seem to get away from him fast enough. 

This the aforementioned Grim, then? 

Well. Dorian opens his mouth, preparing to scathingly demand said person state his intentions and do so far away from Lavellan please, yes, yes, his bestie will gladly set you on fire if you do not abide by -

Several things happen at once.

Lavellan pulls away from Dorian’s grasp and nearly falls ass over tea kettle onto the ground.

Is “saved” by the stranger’s strong grasp in the lapels of his shirt.

Stranger thus pulls Lavellan to his feet, ignoring whatever Lavellan’s saying in scattered sentences (something about _don’t_ and _chairs_ and _I thought we were friends_ ) that seem to be bumping into each other.

Dorian decides this won’t do, at all. He draws the motions for a quick, half-hearted immolate (the Iron Bull, seriously) but pauses halfway through.

Because the stranger pulls Lavellan in, hands shifting into a grip in his hair, the other sliding along his jaw and both used to yank him forward into what looks like will prove a fiery embrace.

Not to mention the, ah, kissing...part.

Dorian feels almost offended, being left out of it all.

It has also become alarmingly clear to him that Lavellan apparently has no idea when someone is hitting on him. 

Trying to kill him... 

Maker, is this how he lost Lavellan to Bull? And all he had to do was snog the hell out of the elf to get the message across?

 _Venhedis_.


	6. collarbone kiss - skinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came out way...cuter, I guess, than it was planned out to be /shrugs

Thwack. 

Lavellan squints at the board on the far side of the room. The dart he’d just thrown embeds itself within one of the inner three rings. Not his best shot, by far, but generally he doesn’t shoot arrows at things while somewhat drunk.

He knows far too many tricks involving fire and poison to trust himself with a bow while he can’t even remember his own name. Reliably, anyway.

The crowd surrounding them erupts in noise, some praising the shot, but far more joking insults surfacing.

Lavellan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, taking his seat again, “least I hit the board, _Rocky_.”

The dwarf grins, unabashedly. They still haven’t found Rocky’s last errant shot, lost somewhere in the crowd when the dwarf lurched to the side unexpectedly and threw off his aim. Miracle he didn’t hit someone.

Rocky reaches for one of the mugs still full of frothing amber liquid on the table. He downs it in one long swallow, dripping trails of liquid all through his beard and staining the shoulders of his shirt. A shirt looking more brown than white anymore.

The sound of the mug thumping back down on the table almost equals the force of his following belch; everyone nearby leans back a pace or two. 

“I can’t even see the board from here, elf,” Rocky says.

“Excuses, excuses.”

Laughing, Lavellan leans to the side while Skinner goes to collect their increasingly dwindling supply of darts, and catches the Iron Bull’s eyes. He’s taken up a chair near the bar, tipped back against a nearby support beam so he can recline into it, arms behind his head and legs crossed. 

Bull, and Grim beside him, bowed out of their friendly game of darts and drinking. Two things that probably shouldn’t be combined with this particular group of people. But where’s the fun in that?

“Sure you don’t want to join in?” Lavellan asks anyway. Again.

“Nah,” Bull says, shaking his head, “wouldn’t really be fair, with my tolerance. Piece of advice though? Throw a little higher. More to the right. You keep overcompensating.”

“‘Ay,” Rocky cuts in with, “that’s cheating.”

Bull raises an eyebrow, nudging Grim beside him, who shrugs. Rocky turns back into the crowd, muttering under his breath.

“Try using a stool.”

The dwarf’s reply is swallowed by a sudden rise in volume level. Probably a good thing, knowing Rocky.

Lavellan turns back to the game too, craning his neck to see over people’s heads. He groans, then scowls at Skinner’s smug little smile. The other elf comes to sit beside him, handing a dart off to Krem.

“Seriously,” Lavellan says, turning to her, “you drank at least half as much as I did. And still bullseyes?”

Her smile sharpens.

“Shooting blanks already, boss?”

Relative silence settles over the tavern patrons, before someone bursts out laughing and it cascades in short order. 

Yes, Skinner’s at least partially drunk, to have loosened up this much. Relaxed enough to joke and hide her pleased smile behind a few sips from the glass beside her.

But the insult to his pride simply cannot stand. Lavellan’s eyes narrow.

“Oh,” he says, “it’s on.”

She shrugs. “If you say so.”

The rest of the Chargers bow out gracefully, or in the case of Krem, with an arm around Stitches’ neck in search of a suitable place to sleep off an inevitable nasty hangover. 

“Lets make this interesting Lavellan,” says Skinner, “drink, then throw. See who can keep hitting the board the longest.”

It’s this moment Lavellan will look back on later, nursing one Maker of a headache, pondering why in the names of all the Creators he agreed to such a thing. Cassandra level of disgusted noises at his life choices.

“Fine.”

Her answering grin is sharp, full of teeth.

It goes well, at first. 

When he puts his mind to it, even having drunk far more than he usually lets himself, his hand steadies enough to find the board with each throw.

Skinner misses her first bullseye and rolls her eyes at his cackling.

They begin another game within their first, following each other around in circles and cheering when they land right next to each other. Well, he cheers. She just sort of smiles more noticeably.

They’re both near the edge of the board when the bartender cuts them off for the night, shaking his head at them.

“Elves,” he mutters.

Skinner gives him a very rude gesture when he’s nearly out the door, probably so late because coordination issues are appearing. Lavellan can’t even stand up straight anymore. He collapses into a chair, laughing at absolutely nothing.

“Happy drunk,” Skinner says, appearing at his side. 

She wraps her arms around his neck and climbs into his lap. Lavellan lets her.

“Cling on,” he teases, laughing again at the memory of some joke which currently escapes him. Funny as shit though, that he knows.

Skinner tucks her legs up under her, fitting snugly in his lap. She rests her head on his shoulder, chuckling.

“You’re much more fun, Lavellan, when you’re drunk.”

“I don’t know whether to be offended,” Lavellan says, tilting his head against hers, “by that or not. I’m...I’m totally funner..Funnest? The funnest. All the time.”

It starts off another fit of laughter. He sighs when the urge drains out of him, slow like gently rocking waves. Skinner snuggles a little closer.

“Warm, too,” she murmurs. 

He waves a hand in the air, watching it flop back to his side with detached interest.

“S’me, Lavellan blanket at your service.”

But it’s comfortable, like this. They watch the embers of a once roaring fire slowly burning out without speaking, simply enjoying the moment. A little bit of stillness in their too often chaotic lives.

All of a sudden, Skinner leans up and presses her lips into his collarbone. He swats at her, because it tickles. But he returns the kiss, much sloppier, to the top of her head. Her vocal distaste summons sleepy dredges of laughter.

After a while it becomes too much for either to keep their eyes open. They slowly drift close, guided by the quiet breathing of the other.

Simple.


	7. upside down kiss - krem/bull

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter before this and this one took me forever to write, but I think I currently like them best. Funny, that.

The door to Lavellan’s quarters swings wide open, bouncing against the stone wall directly behind it. Over on the balcony, staring out into space, Lavellan doesn’t even flinch.

Doesn’t move, whether to turn around and greet whomever’s at the door or at least turn his head and recognize them.

“He’s been like that for days,” says Josephine, holding her clipboard to her chest. “Distracted, distant. I...worry.”

She gives an indignant squawk when a large hand pats the top of her head. Its owner steps over the threshold without a look back, through his companion gives the Lady Ambassador a sheepish smile, shutting the door behind them.

It’s not until the lock clicks in place that Lavellan startles and slowly turns around.

“Bull,” he says, blinking, “Krem? Can I help you with something?”

The Iron Bull stands in the middle of his room, arms crossed, eyeing him up and down in silence. In response, Lavellan wraps his arms around himself, like he’s cold.

Or hugging himself.

“Yeah,” says Bull. “C’mere.”

Lavellan looks at him strangely, then to Krem, who offers no help. The elf shrugs, slowly making his way over to Bull, as always having to crane his neck up to look him in the eye.

But Bull does nothing once Lavellan’s closer other than continue to impassively watch him. Lavellan shifts on the balls of his feet, gaze suddenly unable to stay on anything for long. After a while, the elf unfolds and, hesitantly, reaches up.

His arms slide around Bull’s neck as the other man scoops him up, cradling him close. If Lavellan presses his cheek into his chest such as to avoid both of their gazes, well, no one’s going to call him on it.

“Having nightmares about Adamant again?”

Krem’s voice is soft, words carefully framed so as not to sound like an accusation, but Lavellan still tenses and draws up into as much of a ball as he can. Only Bull’s long fingers, taking up stroking through his hair, calm him enough that he relaxes again.

“It’s not just that,” he says, “it’s the Envy demon. Haven. Being cold again. Always so cold.”

Even in the lightly chilled air of his quarters, Lavellan shouldn’t be shivering like that. Without being asked, Krem moves to close the doors to the balcony and shut the windows.

“Cold,” Lavellan murmurs.

He keeps saying it, over and over until the repetitions run into each other.

“Hey, Krem,” Bull says, breaking the cycle, “did you know Lavellan’s ticklish?”

Lavellan’s head whips up at him, and Bull chuckles at his glare.

Krem leans against the wall nearest the balcony door and grins. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. Here, show you.”

Lavellan squawks when Bull suddenly shifts him up, inverting his body in mid air. Upside down and locked in place by a large, meaty arm securing him from falling on his head, Lavellan crosses his arms and scowls at them both. Relatively, anyway.

He can only really see Bull’s boots and those of Krem’s walking towards him. The human stops next to him, hands settling on his sides.

“Here, huh,” and Lavellan can hear the smirk in his voice, even if he can’t see it.

“Don’t you dare -”

But it’s much too late. Krem’s fingers dig into his sides, effortlessly finding every place that makes Lavellan gasp and writhe against Bull, laughing so hard he cries.

Neither of them can understand the half bitten off bits of elvish Lavellan lavishes them with between gasps, but can both guess for content. 

“Such language,” Bull says, mildly.

“Yes,” Krem agrees, pausing his assault. “Something must be done.”

“Great. Lemme up before I get a headache.”

But instead, Krem kneels down, wrapping his fingers in Lavellan’s hair instead. His hands cradle his head, drawing the blinking elf closer. Lavellan squints at him.

“What’re you -”

Krem leans forward and eliminates the rest of that thought with the press of soft lips against his. He works open Lavellan slowly, clearly enjoying leisurely licking into his mouth. And blunt teeth scrape across the elf’s bottom lip, making him shiver for quite different reasons entirely.

Krem leaves him breathless when he pulls back, but Lavellan doesn’t have much time to think on it. Bull rights him again as easily as tossing around a rag doll, depositing him on his bed before the dizziness has time to pass.

He’s pulled up against Krem’s chest from behind, the human snaking his arms around his waist and simply clasping his hands in front. Lavellan shifts a bit, but Krem is undeniably warm in a cozy way, and he soon melts back into him.

Whines a little when he’s passed to Bull after a while, who has the sheets pulled back, seemingly ready to all but tuck him into bed.

Lavellan goes, accepting the softness of the bed for a lack of Krem. Only to have him rejoin at his back, once again pulling him close. Then Bull is in front of him, caging him against Krem and between the warmth of their bodies.

Bull’s face softens, and he tips Lavellan’s chin upward. He gently wipes away new signs of tears with the pad of his thumb, tsking quietly.

“Always here to keep you warm, little one.”

He tucks Lavellan’s head against his chest and the elf goes willingly, whether to hide his face again or because it’s comfortable only he really knows.

His hands seek out theirs under the blankets and squeeze, tightly.


	8. neck kiss - iron bull

Lavellan relaxes into his bed, or at least tries to. Weeks sleeping in tents, or on the ground, leaves it hard to get used to softness again. Worse, every time he shifts it agitates some ache or pain and completely erases any progress into that happy drowsy, half-awake but mostly asleep state he really wants to be in at the moment.

At least he’s home. Skyhold. Home. It used to be just that place he’s living at until someone, or something for all he knows, can get this Maker damned mark off his hand. 

Temporary.

Something to examine, but later, when thinking stops continually sparking little flashes of pain like lightning at his temples and the back of his head.

Lavellan rolls onto his side, away from the door, legs curled up behind him. How he usually likes to sleep, when he’s not draped over the qunari mercenary/spy curiously missing when he returned to Skyhold with Hawke and Alistair. Moving sends little twinges up his spine, protesting his recent abuse at the hands of the Wardens in the Western Desert.

Do Grey Wardens do nothing else but fight darkspawn and train to fight when the foul creatures return to their hovels? It’s the only explanation for how hard they hit. How fit they are too, but it’s a little hard to focus on that and avoid the mace flying at one’s head at the same time.

He resolves to write a letter to Vigil’s Keep and inquire with Mahariel. If anything, at least the response should prove amusing.

And there’s too little humor in life anymore Lavellan will take it where he finds it.

He pulls the covers up to his chin and hunkers down under it. With any luck, exhaustion will win out over the pain and he’ll only regret being alive in the morning. Instead of random times throughout the night.

Lavellan registers the quiet click of the door to his room sliding open like a dream. Not sure if the sound was real or something he just imagined, and in any case it’s not like he’s in any way interested in rolling over again to see for sure.

Only a couple people who would come in without knocking, excluding the advisors and Cassandra ever since that...horrible or amusing, or both, incident where they’d wandered in on them before Bull had dressed.

Leliana probably wouldn’t even need, or use, a door to drop in on him unannounced. Maybe painstakingly cut a tiny entrance in the ceiling and drop in to smother him to death or something. 

He’s partway through wondering if that should bother or comfort him, because at least she’d be consistent (probably despair at the muddy, tattered state of his boots too), when the bed dips and someone slides in next to him.

Lavellan’s guest pulls him back up against a broad chest, a hand curling underneath the sheets around his hip. A thumb slowly rubs out circles over the bone and down into the muscle to the side, a scant bit from a different message entirely.

Lavellan closes his eyes completely, groaning some incoherent, sleepy but happy, sound. The answering chuckle comes as always, light. A man with Bull’s stature and girth almost seems should always have a deep baritone voice, something gruff. But Lavellan likes the abnormality, like all the others about the hulking giant who seems to have stolen his heart without really trying.

It’ll hurt like shit, but damnit, it’s been weeks since they’ve last seen each other. He wants to actually _see_ , see him.

Rolling over is a generous term for the heavy sort of tilt, flop thing he does, trapping one arm underneath his body and smushing his face into the pillow. Lavellan squints his good eye up at his bedmate.

“Mmm,” he says, “miss me?”

Bull reaches over and pulls the arm trapped under Lavellan’s weight until it deposits him on his back. Leans down and presses a kiss into his grimace, the heat of him so close, so nice.

“Been thinking about you.”

He threads fingers through Lavellan’s hair, but doesn’t tug or pull, the usual preludes to many of their encounters. Seems content to stroke through it, pale eyes focused on the brilliant contrast of blood red against grey. Soon enough he turns to rubbing his fingertips into strategic points of Lavellan’s head, slowly drawing back the haze Lavellan had suffered through at least since during the night’s ride back to Skyhold.

Half considered asking Alistair to put him out of his misery. Thought more about throwing up on the ground, so Bull’s fingers are a much improved option.

Bull abandons his hair after a while, electing to pull Lavellan closer, nose nudging against the side of his forehead.

“Mm,” Bull says, breathing in deep, like he always does when Lavellan’s away too long without him. “Out there with Hawke and that Grey Warden. Middle of the desert. All alone.”

Lavellan ducks his head against Bull’s chest, tired grin curving his lips.

“Is that jealousy I hear?”

Bull gives him a considering hum.

“Dunno. Hawke’s pretty hot.”

Lavellan lightly punches the nearest arm, which shifts so a hand can close around his fist and interlace their fingers instead.

“She’s not my type,” he says.

“Nah?”

Lavellan snuggles closer, so Bull’s hands travel from the back of his neck to his shoulders.

“Too thin,” Lavellan says, pressing a kiss into his skin, “like to have something to hold onto. And she doesn’t seem inclined to manhandle me against a wall like someone I know. Yours?”

Bull kneads the heels of his hands into Lavellan’s shoulders, drawing out groans before he moves on. Down the elf’s back, palms pressed against skin seemingly just for touch alone.

“Nah,” Bull agrees, “not slender enough. Ears too round. Would miss all this red. Just recognize it where I see it.”

Lavellan hums. He tilts his head up to headbutt Bull under the chin and encourage him to draw back, let them see eye to eye again.

Bull looks almost as tired as Lavellan feels, not even bothering to keep the signs off his face. Pinched quality around the eyes, lips curling back slightly whenever he shifts. All signs his back is bothering him again.

It worries Lavellan, but also settles a pleasant warmth somewhere in his chest. Getting Bull to drop the mask, one of many for sure, even here in the relative privacy of the bedroom was hard won. Once a spy, always a spy, Lavellan supposes.

Bull dips down and kisses the frown right off his face.

“Before you ask,” in the tone that means ‘don’t,’ “I’m fine. Just...maybe save the energetic shit for another time.”

Lavellan sighs, but one of relief. He’d been about to bow out of sex himself, half because he hurt, and not in a good way, and half because it’d be mortifying to fall asleep in the middle of it. 

“Good,” he says, yawning, “don’t think I’ll be able to _move_ come morning, anyway.”

“Wardens too fond of smacking you around without kissing it better? Well,” and Bull tiredly grins at him, “most of them, anyway.”

Lavellan groans loudly, wanting to hide his face in his hands. Finding out Alistair was quite possibly Mahariel’s best friend made it even harder not to reply with some accidental innuendo anytime the Warden mentioned the Warden-Commander.

Yes, yes, Mahariel was _quite_ flexible indeed. Still, even…

“You’re horrible,” Lavellan mutters, swatting at his arm. He hesitates, but pushes forward anyway. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Bull musses up his hair instead of answering, pulling him closer still so he can wrap his arms around Lavellan and push the elf’s head back with the side of his nose under his chin.

“Better with you here, little forge.”

Lavallen laughs, quickly translating into a quiet moan. Bull takes to attacking his neck with his mouth, gentler than usual, open mouthed kisses dotted along Lavellan’s skin to his collarbone, one long lick across bone and back. Nuzzles the side of his face into the crook of Lavellan’s neck.

“Hmm,” Lavellan says, eyes slipping shut, “kind of like the softer side, Bull.”

A snort.

“Don’t get used to it.”


	9. any of the above (cheek kiss) - krem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, number 20 on the list was "any of the above," which Krem landed. Means the cheek one will repeat, but mores the merrier.
> 
> Pleased with how this battle came out for the most part, 'cause I struggle with those type of scenes.

They ambush the medium-sized Tevinter force along a short stretch of beach on the Storm Coast. Couple of mages, spellbinder or two, maybe a few archers. Mostly foot soldiers.

Like usual, Bull sees them first. And reacts accordingly.

“ _Vints_ ,” he snarls.

Axe in hand, he lifts it high and swings hard, crashing into the side of one soldier’s helmet with a bellowing roar of satisfaction.

Krem quickly loses sight of Grim in the following scuffle. Judging from the screaming and audible crick crack of bone breaking though, he’s just fine somewhere to his left.

Skinner pops up at his side for a moment, ducking low and neatly disemboweling a soldier about to skewer him. He thanks her with a wide sweep of his shield over her head, catching another in the jaw before he drops on her back.

Several blows in succession. Crack. Crack. _Crunch_.

The soldier lives, only to quickly regret his fortune as arrow followed by arrow strike him in strategic points - several joints, two in the stomach, and both shoulders. Lavellan finally takes pity on his personal pincushion, however, and hits the heart directly soon after.

Tottering, the man’s eyes roll up in their sockets and he topples backward, almost immediately trampled by other fighters.

Krem winces. Least the bastard was dead beforehand.

He spies Dalish and Stitches fighting back to back, the healer batting back two opponents with easy swipes of his blade, Dalish wielding her sta - _bow_ , with her usual grace.

Meaning one of the mages goes hurtling through the air, scream trapped in mouth locked shut by the buzzing, furiously crackling purple energy setting his hair end to end and leaving behind an electric aftertaste as he flies by.

Lavellan arrives near his side in time to breathe in deeply and catch the scent before it passes, eyes lit alive and grin predatory.

“Enjoying yourself?” 

Krem has to shout to be heard over the sounds of battle, but he wears a similar expression, probably.

The elf dances to one side, ducking the fumbling attempt of a swordsman coming at him. He tosses a few hand signals over Krem’s shoulder the human makes no sense of, all flashing by far too rapidly.

But obviously not meant for him, and Grim spits the poor bastard through the gut, leaning heavily down on the blade to really drive it in. Spins the hilt of his blade with a tight twist of his wrist, wrenching it out again.

His victim reaches out for him, but flails only at his pant leg before expiring. 

Clean kill. Krem knows many who would’ve pulled out much earlier, let a stomach wound fester and rot for the agony of the enemy. But never Grim.

Still probably hurt like shit, though. Of course.

“Immensely,” Lavellan laughs, twirling out of view.

Krem keeps vague track of the bouncing mass of red bobbing and weaving through the fray, but also throws up his shield, tilted a bit down. Just in time to endure a sudden flash of flames snapping out toward him. Most of the magic harmlessly fans out over his shield, but one clever tongue of fire flicks at unprotected skin between mail sleeve under his armor and steel reinforced gloves shielding his hands.

He mutters a quick curse, but honestly that was his own fault. Dropped his sword arm too low, again. Can almost feel Bull’s disapproval already.

Cool air whooshes past and ice crystals formalize into a solid, formidable wall between him and whatever mage unlucky enough to deal with the Bull right after Krem.

Delicate fingers grip his wrist, bringing into view a flushed Dalish, murmuring a quick spell under her breath. The pain recedes, skin once bright red paling to its usual shade. She brings his arm up to her mouth anyway, breathing out a brief cloud of icy air to soothe it over still.

“Thanks,” he tells her, panting lightly. 

Dalish beams, dropping the connection. She whips around and swipes the legs out from under someone, followed by several quick, hard crushing blows with her suspiciously-staff-like-bow to random parts of their anatomy.

People always underestimate Dalish, and she delights in proving them wrong. Bashing their brains in or otherwise.

She’s away a moment later, her ice wall dissolving into puddles gobbled up by encroaching sea waves. 

Krem gets a lull in the battle immediately near him to assess how his friends are doing and the state of the enemy.

No one overtly injured, though Grim seems to be favoring his left arm and Stitches limping slightly.

Of the enemy, only a few soldiers remain, less by the minute the more Bull whips his axe around and smashes into them.

One spellbinder, though, Bull doesn’t see or slips under his blind spot, and Krem’s moving without a thought. He puts his fingers in his mouth and barks off a short whistle to catch Lavellan’s attention, half admiring the elf’s nimble grace in scaling down the nearby rock face in short order even as he pushes past his limits to meet him.

A flailing fist smashes into his jaw first, however, twisting his head painfully to the side. Copper fills his mouth while he stumbles, trying to turn about to face whatever bastard just slugged him.

Needn't have bothered, really, the glint of what rapidly reveals itself to be a sword slinging through the air and finding its target. Stitches, now disarmed, shrugs off a ringing blow to his forearm, hissing deeply. He disarms the man lashing out at him and cross diagonally lays two slashes into his torso with the man’s own sword. Enough that the soldier doesn’t rise to his feet again after he falls.

But the spellbinder, yes.

Lavellan nearly barrels past him, and only Krem’s tight grip on his wrist yanks him back.

Both half breathless, they bare their teeth at each other in what can, charitably, be deemed smiles. Krem pulls Lavellan in quickly, hand to the small of his back, landing a hard, messy kiss to the side of his face.

He leaves behind an imprint of blood, but Lavellan blows a kiss back to him, already spinning out of his personal space but not his range. Krem grips Lavellan’s hand tight and grins again, jerking that arm back and then releasing him up high.

Lavellan sails through the air with violent joy, light as the petals of an embrium flower plucked away on a windy day. Krem stays still only long enough to watch his arc turn into a sudden twist, the elf’s quick fingers drawing his bow and notching an arrow from the quiver at his belt in one breath.

There’s an artistry to Lavellan’s chaos, truly, and Krem remembers once seeing even Solas pause, watching him ravage the battlefield, fingers twitching at his side as though yearning for a brush. 

Krem reaches Bull in time to trade one of the last remaining Vints for another, stepping back to back and in concert.

Somewhere near them Lavellan’s arrow lands true and the spellbinder’s fledgling barrier dies in a burst of green sparks and gurgled death cry.

“Careful chief,” Krem tells Bull, blocking a blow and waiting for an opening, “Might have’ta sweep him off his feet, right out from under your nose.”

Bull rolls his shoulders. His massive axe shortly follows, slamming into the head of his opponent with awful force. But he’s already barking a laugh, twisting at the waist to grin ferally at Krem.

“Get in line, boy.”

Krem sloppily salutes him, too busy biting into his opponent to shout “horns up” at him and get mock yelled at for insubordination.

Oh, he bets it’s a long line. 

Lavellan isn’t exactly attractive in a conventional sense. 

But he’s nothing but beauty when he’s like this, standing far above the battlefield and gazing down on all of them with some fierce shine to his eyes.

Covered in grime, gore, and blood thickly layered dark red as his sweat soaked, messy hair, fanged grin and all. 

There’s an undeniable presence in that tiny, unassuming little elf.

Krem drives his sword into the ground, resting on it heavily.

Battle’s done. Everyone who should be dead, dead, and everyone who shouldn’t milling about around him.

Lavellan jumps off a cliff several feet high in the air, seemingly content to trust Bull to catch him well before he risks danger hitting the ground. Bull does, of course, dropping his axe in favor of arms full of elf.

They're lucky to have that sort of surety. 

That Lavellan will always jump when he needs to, physically or not, and Bull ready and waiting for the fall.

Lucky bastards, the both of them.


	10. hot & steamy kiss - rocky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say I saved this update for Valentines Day but alas that would be a lie. Real life problems get in the way of writing, sadly.
> 
> Anyway, felt this one was obvious, so tried for a bit of a more "creative" interpretation. Idk. Still more smooch smooch :)

Shifting in his horse’s saddle, Lavellan draws his coat a little tighter, grumbling. Too damn early in the morning to be out riding, which he hates in the first place, and doubly so out scouring the Exalted Plains. But no, Rocky would not be dissuaded, not even when Lavellan pointed out all the undead.

Worse than fucking Crestwood, or the Mire, and that’s saying something.

The dwarf in question turns around, petting the head of his tiny pony.

“Come on elf,” he says, “quit lagging behind.”

Lavellan’s unkind response is lost in a sudden gust of wind. But Rocky grins at him before he turns back to scout their path ahead, so he caught the intended rudeness. Good.

Lavellan sighs, then nudges his horse forward, drawing up beside him.

“You know,” he says, “we fought a dragon here. I remember all the nearby hot springs were, how to say it, fucking boiling when I got shoved into them.”

“Well, that’s why we’ll avoid the ones that bubble.”

Rocky nods, pleased with his own, very flawed logic.

“They all bubbled!”

“You’ll see.”

When they reach the start of the marshland, both mounts whinny, snuffling at the water. Lavellan reaches into his saddlebags and feeds his horse a carrot, patting its head when it trots on, happily munching.

Rocky leads them on a winding path through the march, pass the area a lightning dragon once roamed, chomping on anything that moved. Scorch marks still line the ground from her bellowing shouts, though less so where the water and other ick have reclaimed their disturbed habitat. 

As usual, apart from clumps of blood lotus and the bones of unlucky critters, it’s like a wet, soggy Hinterlands. Without the bears. But the bears might be an improvement on the wyverns.

Avoiding those bastards was one of the reasons Rocky insisted they start out this early, before few of his fellow Chargers or anyone else for that matter had awoken or become fully functional. Only got Lavellan up by barreling into his room and tossing himself bodily at the lumpy shape hidden under the blanket.

And the jumping. Oh, the jumping. 

“Here we are.”

Lavellan turns toward Rocky’s voice, spying the dwarf off his mount and standing by the side of a shallow pool, water mostly clear and to his credit, not boiling. Swinging off his horse and tethering it to the same nearby tree as the dwarf had, Lavellan gives the water a narrowed gaze.

Rocky notices.

He slaps the top of a nearby rock, patches of its original white poking through layers of dust and underneath a thick layering of moss.

“Good, strong rock,” Rocky says, crouching by the side of the pool, “probably underlies this whole place. Purifies the water, you see.”

Lavellan tilts his head at him. “You just made that up.”

“That’s what I like about you, elf,” Rocky says, leaning forward. He dips a finger into the pool to test its temperature, and then cups his hands together to draw a small amount of water.

Which he uses to splash Lavellan in the face.

“You got a brain in that tall head of yours.”

Lavellan sighs, wiping water out of his eyes. “Thick, thick head.”

“Hmm? Nah. Pretty sure I mean tall.”

Lavellan shrugs. Maybe its a dwarven thing, for all he knows.

Rocky’s tossed off his boots and socks, already pulling his shirt up over his head before Lavellan realizes he’s likely going to...oh, okay yeah, going to. The whole way.

The dwarf’s down to his smallclothes when Lavellan reluctantly turns back, hands on his hips.

“Like you haven’t seen most of the Chargers naked at some point,” he says, wriggling thick, bushy eyebrows like lecherous caterpillars.

“After battle, sure,” Lavellan says, but he laughs despite himself.

If they didn’t need the armor for protection, he wouldn’t be surprised if some of them, especially Krem and Grim, went without clothes altogether, how bloody and covered with other grisly fluids they all get after a battle.

Lavellan lets himself get distracted a moment or two, it is a nice thought, and then shakes his head. But Rocky’s still staring at him so he shrugs and pulls his shirt off. Drapes it over a nearby rock rather than scatter over the ground, like Rocky, boots and socks following.

The dwarf gives him an exaggerated wolf-whistle when he finally strips his pants, but Lavellan expects it and just grins. 

They look like a pair of severely mismatched twins. If squinted at. From a distance. Possibly on a foggy day.

Lavellan is taller, and thinner, leaner in all ways. Darker than Rocky, and of an athletic build with most of his muscles concentrated in his arms. Takes some upper body strength to work a long bow, after all.

Rocky comes up to about his waist, more squat and stocky in general. A little pudgy around the stomach, sure, but still strong as shit. Doesn’t have as many cuts as Lavellan, which pan the elf’s entire body like brushstrokes on a morbid canvas, but patches of old burn marks dot Rocky’s hands and arms.

Some he claims from various acids, and Lavellan believes him. Also doesn’t want to know the what, why, how, or even the when. It’s safer not to wonder. 

But he’s proven there is at least one hot springs in the Plains not scalding enough to cook whatever even stands nearby, so Lavellan follows Rocky in. They settle at opposite ends of the pool, legs just brushing each other. It’s wide enough not to be cramped. Barely.

Once he sits down and leans back, blinking up at the surprisingly cloud free sky, it’s even almost worth being up this early. Almost.

Warmer than most of the baths at Skyhold, which still comprise mostly of icy river water. Lavellan makes a mental note to do something about that. Preferably at the earliest opportunity. Might encourage some people to actually take a bath, and he’s not thinking about Sera, at all, really, but she would probably be near the top of the list.

After a while, Rocky nudges his leg and splashes water his way.

“Admit it.”

Lavellan lifts his head, lazily cracking open one yellow eye at him in question.

“Good idea,” Rocky elaborates.

Splash, splash, splash. Lavellan closes his eyes again. Sighs.

“All right. But _once_ in a thousand doesn’t count for much Rocky.”

“Seems we should celebrate the rarity.”

“By shutting up?”

But Lavellan’s not all that surprised when Rocky breaks the quiet by grabbing his arm and yanking him over. Makes the elf nearly sitting in his lap, and is rather lucky Lavellan spreads his legs so his knees land somewhere around the dwarf’s hips instead of far more sensitive areas. 

Rocky flicks him on the nose, grinning widely up into his cross expression. He makes kissy noises and wriggles his fingers at him, making Lavellan laugh again. Does seem a little surprised when Lavellan captures his hands and puts them in his hair.

“S’not a kiss unless you’re pulling my hair,” Lavellan tells him, tangling his own fingers in Rocky’s beard.

“Kinky,” Rocky snickers.

But he fists his hands in it. At first it’s weird, because Bull doesn’t pull that tight, or wrap and wind around his hands. Prefers to thread his fingers through it, twisting only small sections in order to better control which way Lavellan’s head follows.

Still…

Each, he decides, before Rocky clears the distance remaining, each have their merits.


	11. kiss in the rain - stitches

The Inquisition’s first trip into Crestwood sees Inquisitor Lavellan return without Hawke’s warden friend or an answer for all the undead rising from the lake. For all his usual troubles, Crestwood sees fit to part only with a cold that leaves Lavellan shivering and running high fevers for half a week.

The second, and then third see mostly quantities of water almost unheard of (really, Josie accuses them of jumping in lakes again, but they’d _learned_...after the Mire) and an alarming number of corpse brain. Researcher Minaeve seemed pleased, at any rate, plunging her hands into the bucket almost eagerly.

All in all, it means Stitches finds himself stuck in the middle of nowhere on the fourth trip, trudging through downpour enough to oversaturate the grass. A day in and the horses struggle to push through all the mud.

Which means they proceed further on foot, slower and more miserable. If that were possible.

Worst is the cold, exacerbated by the freezing rain. Stitches starts leaning heavily on a sturdy walking stick, both aiding the treacherous path forward and hiding the fact it takes him longer than it should to uncurl out of his bent over position whenever they stop for breaks.

From everyone but Lavellan, anyway.

Stitches isn’t terribly surprised one night the elf pushes open his tent flap and greets him with a wan smile, dark circles under his eyes and yellow eyes faintly dull in the flickering light of candlefire.

“Wanted to thank you for coming along,” Lavellan says, hiding a yawn behind one hand. “Dunno what it is about undead, but they frighten most the other healers.”

Stitches shrugs, not having minded in the first place and saying as such. The amount of undead Crestwood’s seen in the past few months have cut off villagers and travelers alike from any form of civilization. Likely some of them have need of a healer in one fashion or another.

“This late at night, Inquisitor?”

Lavellan smiles sheepishly, seeming briefly more alive in the moment. It fades as Stitches shifts and can’t quite hide a grimace to the sharp, hot stab of pain radiating through his side. Some old injury he’s forgotten how he even obtained, but it hasn’t failed to ache fiercely whenever it rains or the temperature drops.

And when both concur…

“Anything I can do?” 

Lavellan seems to pose the question seriously enough despite the way his shoulders have slumped through their short exchange. He keeps blinking to keep his eyes open, squinting at Stitches and rubbing at them tiredly.

Stitches would insist he return to his own tent and rest. Wouldn’t take no for an answer, either. But Lavellan can be stubborn as a druffalo. And they could both use the sleep, so why not?

He eyes the other man, mind suddenly stuck on something he overheard from Bull and Krem. Didn't mean to eavesdrop, really, but it always carried with it a certain sense of potential.

“Are you as warm as Bull and Krem claim, then?”

Lavellan tilts his head, blinking. A slow smile curves his lips.

“Talking about me behind my back again,” he says, though with a quiet laugh, “tsk, tsk.”

He draws further inside the tent instead of leaving, nodding his head to the pallet set up in the corner. It’s barely room enough for one full grown man, let alone two. But Lavellan is small, and neither mind sleeping curled up in the other.

They manage, with Lavellan against his back, an arm draped lightly over Stitches’ midsection. The curve of the healer’s bad hip presses into the space between Lavellan’s inner thighs. After a while, Stitches raises an unseen eyebrow and would even twist around if he knew it wouldn’t hurt.

“Happy to see me,” he murmurs, “or should I just assume you carry weaponry into the bedroom every night?”

The body against his shakes with suppressed laughter.

“You know me and Bull,” he says, lips curving a smile against Stitches’ skin. “So sure you want the answer?”

He raises a fair point.

Once settled as well as they can, Lavellan presses his face into the healer’s neck. Stitches faintly notes his skin seems over-warm. Signs of another impending fever, no doubt.

Lavellan seems to fare poorly in extended weather the likes of Crestwood. To that Stitches can well sympathize. Lavellan sighs, the echo of his breath ghosting across Stitches’ bare shoulder and the nape of his neck. Warm. 

“This okay?”

But Lavellan mistakes shivering for pain and not that the warmth of his bedmate is already seeping into tired, aching bones. Dulls the pain from his hip from immediate, searing like the flashfires of the afternoon’s clash with a group of spellbinders, to uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, but bearable. 

Tiny little forge, indeed.

And Lavellan smells of the earth after a clean rainshower, as if he rolled right among the grass and dirt themselves. Stitches smiles, unseen. Not exactly fresh, but no one is in this atrocity of countryside and Stitches is sorry, he is, but Crestwood is dreary, wet, and little else.

Perhaps he manages a response. An incoherent murmur of assent. “Perfect” even, maybe. Because he hadn’t really see himself getting to sleep easy that night. And certainly not unbroken.

But he wakes in the morning to an empty bed. Fading vestiges of warmth prompt him to mutter under his breath and curl further into the blankets in hope of following them. Lavellan’s been gone some time, however. Too long.

Stitches dresses and follows the general flow of early morning conversation outside, where naturally it continues to pour. Turns toward the sound of laughter and has to smile. If Bull were here, he’d call it fond and punch his shoulder. Goodnaturedly, of course.

Lavellan looks akin to a drowned rat, or maybe a dog what with how he shakes his head wildly and slicks his hair back out of his eyes with a free hand. Disregarding the fact it doesn’t really help anything, because that’s Lavellan.

Defies all manner of good sense and capacity for self-preservation, yet he attracts the kind of fierce loyalty not given a name. Not explained but seen. Expressed. Witnessed.

He is...Lavellan and standing there holding breakfast, blood smeared across his cheek and along the curve of his throat. Grinning wider when he sees Stitches walking towards him.

“You are a curiosity,” the healer tells him, simply.

Lavellan arches an eyebrow, handing his catch off to a soldier nearby. The soldiers turn away as a whole, pretending to be greatly interested in anything but the Inquisitor and his companion. Hiding smiles and knowing grins, elbowing their fellows and whispering amongst themselves.

No doubt some of them clean up well on more than a few bets of dubious nature.

“Oh?” 

Lavellan doesn’t resist being drawn into an embrace. The spark in his eyes and rakish tilt of his grin indication he all but expected it.

“Do pray tell, Stitches,” he murmurs, tilting his head up, “what sort of curiosity you speak of?”

Expected it and the hand lazily fisted in his collar, the crush of lips on his swallowing laughter he willingly surrenders. If only for a moment.

He is, after all, himself. And far be it for Lavellan to be predictable. Not that Stitches, Bull, and the rest of the Chargers would have him any other way.


End file.
